The members of the Bnei Menashe
community prayed in their local synagogue and then hugged their crying relatives before heading off to the airport in the Manipur state capital of Imphal, 34 miles away.

The Bnei Menashe say they are descended from Jews banished from ancient Israel
to India in the eighth century BC.

An Israeli chief rabbi recognized members of the Bnei Menashe community as a lost tribe in 2005 and about 1,700 moved to Israel before the Israeli government stopped giving them visas.

The government recently reversed that policy. About 7,200 of them remain in India.